The Hungarian Patient

Social Opposition to an Illiberal Democracy

Edited by Peter Krasztev and Jon Van Til

Publication Year: 2015

This book presents compelling essays by leading Hungarian and foreign authors on the variety of social movements and parties that seek influence and power in a Hungary mired in deep and manifold crisis. The main question the volume tries to answer is: what can we expect after the fall of the semi-authoritarian Orbán regime in Hungary. Who will be the new players? What are their backgrounds? What are their political and social ideals, intentions and methods? The studies in the first section of the volume provide the reader with the reasons of the emergence of these new movements: a deep analysis of the historical, political and cultural background of the current situation. The second part contains essays and case studies which challenge the movements and parties involved to look beyond their current ineffectiveness, and to find ways of meeting the challenges that would allow them to exercise responsible and effective leadership in their time and place. This collection would be the first of the kind both in the field of movement theory/history and democracy studies because it reflects on very recent developments not researched in the international scholarly literature. One would not be able to understand contemporary Hungarian society without reading it before the 2014 elections.

Cover

Title page, Copyright, Dedication

Contents

Illustrations

Preface

This volume is envisioned as a kind of a guidebook to the contemporary
Hungarian political scene. The case of Hungary, the way this country has
slowly deconstructed its democratic institutions, which it had gradually
built up over the past two decades, makes it unique in the...

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude to all friends and colleagues who
encouraged us and provided us with useful critiques; to our first readers,
Professor László Bruszt and Ivan Krastev; as well as to Professor Judit
Sándor and Professor György Majtényi. We feel deeply...

Abbreviations

Diagnosis

1. Broken Democracy, Predatory State, and Nationalist Populism

A new, right-wing government came to power in Hungary in May 2010,
led by Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party.1 Since doing so, it has significantly
altered the country’s legal, social, and political infrastructure. The
53 percent absolute majority it achieved at the ballot boxes...

2. Hungary’s Illiberal Turn: Disabling the Constitution

In Hungary’s April 2010 general elections, former prime minister Viktor
Orbán and his Fidesz party won an overwhelming majority of the seats in
parliament. The elections gave voters a choice among the discredited
Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), which had governed...

3. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Basic Rights Protection in the Ombudsman’s Activity: Toward a European Type of Ombudsman System

In contemporary Hungary, it is the commissioner for fundamental rights
(ombudsman), not the citizen, who knocks on the door of the Constitutional
Court. As of January 1, 2012, not every citizen has the actio popularis1
at his or her disposal for initiating the abstract...

Symptoms

4. Party Colonization of the Media: The Case of Hungary

Media scholars looking into the relationship between political and media
systems in the former communist countries have mainly worked on the
assumption that parties seek control over the media in order to suppress
critical voices and to gain favorable coverage so that they can...

5. Captured by State and Church: Civil Society in Democratic Hungary

The vibrant third sector (herein referred to as the civil sector) arising from
the political changes of 1989 raised the question of whether it would develop
toward state control or move toward developing a robust partnership
and dialogue with the state.1 Paradoxically, both these possibilities...

6. Political Empowerment or Political Incarceration of Romani? The Hungarian Version of the Politics of Dispossession

Following 1989, Hungarian society went through an extraordinary economic,
political, and social transformation that significantly influenced the
overall situation of its Roma population.1 The Hungarian regime change
was strongly connected to external political forces such...

7. Timike and the Sweetie Pies: Fragmented Discourses about Women in Hungarian Public Life

In this chapter, I deal with discourses which overtly or covertly encompass
aspects of womanhood and femininity, and seek to illuminate the
power of discourses constructing women and femininity in the Hungarian
public mindset. Talk about women and gender issues is accepted...

8. The Rise of the Radical Right in Hungary

In this chapter, we argue that there is a new wave of radical populist parties
emerging in the crisis-ridden periphery of Europe.
It is a well-known phenomenon that radical right-wing parties are
emerging in historical waves. Following the defeat of the wave of interwar...

9. Social Responses to the “Hybridization” of the Political System: The Case of Hungary in the Central and Eastern European Context

Modern revolutions come in various colors—rose, jasmine, orange or
tulip—but they can also hide beneath pseudonyms such as the Arab
Spring, the Bulldozer Revolution or the Revolution of the Elections. But
what are they: symptoms of decay or hellfire, the most recent...

10. The Road of the Hungarian Solidarity Movement

Fledgling dictatorships and authoritarian regimes typically pamper their
armed forces and law enforcement agencies, showering money and privileges
on their members in order to win their loyalty and have them safely
on their side in case of possible confrontations with the...

11. Milla: A Suspended Experiment

The story of One Million for the Freedom of the Press in Hungary (Milla)
is a short chapter in the 25-year Hungarian political transformation. It was
an experiment that came to a quick halt, never quite expressing or even
conceptualizing the question of whether or not the postcommunist...

12. The Rise of the LMP Party and the Spirit of Ecological Movements

The aim of this chapter is to tell the tale of a relatively coherent cohort of
young, educated, smart, optimistic, enthusiastic, and well-intentioned
people who established a political party aimed at overcoming the coldwar–
like divisions of Hungarian politics in order to achieve...

13. The Hungarian Student Network: A Counterculture in the Making

The present chapter is based on a study conducted at the beginning of
2013 that focused on the occupation of the Faculty of Humanities (BTK)
at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) building in February 2013, an event
also known as the Blockade (blokád). The event was...

14. Increasingly Radical Interventions: The New Wave of Political Art in Hungary

In this essay, visual arts will enjoy the most attention partly because, in
my view, that is the area where the turn toward a political and activist
approach has been the most pronounced. Also, I focused on visual art
because contemporary domestic criticism has not described...

Life Perspectives

15. From Belarus to Hungary: Lessons from a Traditionalist Revolution

Comparison of these two countries may spark controversy for many reasons:
in the West, Belarus is seen as a pariah nation. When I first compared
Hungary and Belarus at a conference dedicated to Eastern Europe in
Copenhagen three years ago, a high-ranking Hungarian diplomat...

16. Dark VikTory

What follows is a loosely bookreviewish, psychodynamish-litcritty interpretation
and exegesis of two recent books: Igor Janke’s best seller in
Hungary, Hajrá, magyarok!,1 a biography of Viktor Orbán; and the collection
of essays Magyar polip,2 edited by Bálint Magyar...

If the future is the child of the past, mediated by a thin moving line of
present moments that link these seeming infinities, then Hungary will
continue to be a worried land. The cloudy colors1 of its dismal 20thcentury
history and its troubled entry to the 21st—so often...

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